HELP! Diy patio dye disaster

[homemove]

I'm hoping someone can help me ASAP. I've recently done a new indian stone patio and it was looking great after I had just completed all the pointing. I left the pointing mortar to dry and solidify as I planned to give it a soft rinse in a week or so.

However disaster happened as my missus wasn't aware and whilst I was at work, she decided to blast the patio clean with a karcher, thinking this was what she was supposed to do. All the patio has now turned a bluish colour as the mortar had some dye mixed in it.

I don't know what to do as I feel the stone is ruined and all my hard work of pointing has gone to a waste.

Any help and advise guys please?

Thanks

 

[r896neo]

Eek, that is grim. Your problem is not easy to solve. The problem being the stone will have sucked in some on the dye. It looks like your pointing in warm dry weather using a wet mix. This makes the flags very thirsty and they readily take in moisture and your dye has been sucked into them as well.

I would give it a wash with a diluted mortar acid, 3:1 water to acid. BUT YOU MUST test it on a spare flag or inconspicuous area first as some indian sandstone can be discoloured by acids. Do this asap but leave your test spot a good 24 hours to let any acid discolouration show before ploughing on with the whole lot.

In theory mortar colouriser binds to the cement molecules so using acid to dissolve the cement should help the surface stuff but some of the colour will have soaked in.

It will weather out in time but aside from frequent acid and bleach cleaning there isnt anything you can do as its not a surface stain.

Good luck though I hope it gets better.

P.S I dont buy the wife story. We have all done things like this at some point, even the sort of critical people who would never own up.

 

[r896neo]

Obviously the acid wash may discolour your pointing a little but thats the least of your worries.

 

[homemove]

Cheers for top tip buddy. Luckily we've got a shop open until 9pm, so I've managed to grab Everbuild's mortar cleaner and applied it to the small square flag. I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow before knowing the result. I'm not bothered about the pointing discolouring because that can always be replaced.

I wasn't joking about my wife, lol! Although I do have one thing to admit which is that she wanted me to buy the readimix type of grout and I on the other hand tried to be a cheapskate and save money by adding my own dye, so I guess it's partly my fault.